To seat belt or not to seat belt: Question of school bus safety revs up at Marshfield Town Meeting

Monday

May 5, 2014 at 8:23 AMMay 5, 2014 at 10:13 AM

There is no state law in Massachusetts requiring seat belt use in school buses, but certain school districts do require seat belts on buses, including Wellesley and Waltham.

Staff Reporter

When Town Meeting resumes tonight, voters will face the issue of whether there should be seat belts on school buses.

Resident Stephen Lynch is bringing the issue to Town Meeting in Marshfield through a citizens petition. The petition calls to have three-point seat belts on all school buses transporting children in town to and from school, sporting events and class trips.

There is no state law in Massachusetts requiring seat belt use in school buses, but certain school districts do require seat belts on buses, including Wellesley and Waltham.

According to Lynch, it all comes down to safety, especially for his 8-year-old daughter.

“I believe that even though testing shows that school buses are safer than cars, it doesn’t make them safe enough not to have seatbelts,” Lynch said. “In a roll over kids, get thrown all over the place.”

However, resident Nancy Belezos said seat belt use could be hard to enforce.

“What happens when a child can’t get their seat belt undone because someone stuck gum in it, the bus driver doesn’t see them, and their stop?” Belezos said. “The bus driver cannot supervise use and there would be no way to monitor who is wearing them.”

Belezos, who has three elementary school-aged children, said that seat belts can sometimes hurt children if cinched too tightly. She was also concerned about the cost of installing seat belts to the district.

“It seems like a great expense for something a very small percentage of riders would choose to wear,” Belezos said. “I think there is more opportunity for seat belts to be used unsafely than increasing the safety of our buses.”

Superintendent of Schools Scott Borstel said he believed three-point seat belts can’t be retrofitted onto school buses. Should the petition pass, the school’s transportation contractor with would have to provide buses with seat belts.

Lynch said he would be willing to amend his petition so that it would not take effect until 2016, when the district’s current school bus contract expires.

Borstel said previously he was told it would be “approximately $10,000 per bus,” to add the three point seat belts, the cost of which would fall to the school district.

Along with other citizens petitions, voters will also decide on a proposed bylaw that would ban the public consumption of marijuana in town and slap pot puffers with a $300 fine for each offense.

The bylaw would ban public consumption of marijuana in any form on Marshfield’s streets for regular citizens, but would allow qualified patients to consume the drug only in non-smoking forms, such as edible brownies or chocolates.

Marshfield Police Chief Phil Tavares said he crafted the bylaw out of concern for public safety and the effects of secondhand smoke.

A zoning bylaw that would bring mixed-use commercial and residential buildings to the B-4 zone in Brant Rock will also come to the floor of Town Meeting. The bylaw is designed to help economically revitalize the Brant Rock area as well as help mitigate flooding problems.

Design standards for new or rebuilt construction in the overlay district include flood-proofing buildings and creating an outside, elevated public space such as a boardwalk or farmer’s porch that is above flood level. Buildings would be commercial use on the first floor and residential on the second floor.

Town Meeting continues at 7 p.m. tonight in the Furnace Brook Middle School gymnasium.

Follow reporter Lisa Kashinsky on Twitter: @MarshfieldLisa. She will be tweeting live from tonight's meeting.